Here is a site that has pictures and history of Victorian houses:

http://www.victorianstation.com/home2.html

There are thousands of sites on the net dedicated to history, a lot with pictures... but you need to learn how to work the search engines...(Alta Vista, Hot Bot, Google, All the Web...etc) and, I believe all of them have instructions on how to do just that...narrow your search, advanced search, etc.

      It takes patience sometimes, but the net is a unprecedented resource for us.  At no time in the history of the world have we had this gigantic amount of information available to us.  It's all out there, history, architecture, costume design, you name it...it's there!

      For instance, I just put in "ice boxes" into a search engine, (Google) and came up with 189,000 hits!  (Here's where patience and narrowing your field will come in handy...because you might not want to plow through all 189,000 sites.)  But this one:

http://www.qconline.com/progress99/4frigs.shtml

which I found on the second page of sites, has pictures of a ice box from 1900.

      By the way, here is Googles site, which has over a million web pages for you to search.

http://www.google.com/

Kaye in L.A.

18th Century British foods:  I have a wonderful book called "Food and Cooking in C18th century Britain".  Not exactly what you are looking for as you are doing American colonial but here are some ideas from the book.

      Puddings (an English phenomenon) boiled, baked, sweet, plain or savory formed a major part of the diet.  Farm animals replaced wild animals due to the advances in agriculture.  There was a marked increase in the use of sugar, ketchups and bottled sauces to make food more palatable.  Sea fish gradually overtook freshwater fish in popularity as transport methods improved and oysters were eaten in abundance and not just by the wealthy.   Bread was eaten more by the poor than the well off who ate cake for both breakfast and afternoon tea.  Common vegetables included most of those we eat today although tomatoes were not eaten raw until the late C19th.  Grapes, peaches and pineapples were grown in hothouses for the privileged and other "garden" fruits were made into jam which was a cheaper spread than butter for bread.   Again because of improved transport regional foods became widely known such as Scotch salmon, Cheddar cheese and Stilton and foreign foods included macaroni and Parmesan from Italy, curry, rice pilau from India and ketchups from the Far East.  Ready mixed curry powder was on sale from the1780's.

      Because of the  difficulties in keeping food fresh most was either jammed, pickled, smoked  or potted with a crust although ice as a preserving agent was known as early as the late C16th.  Brass and copper pans if used with acid food could create verdigris which was poisonous and preserving jars were not always boiled first thus encouraging botulism to develop.

Karon

Household Equipment: A wonderful book called "The National Trust Book of Forgotten Household Crafts" by John Seymour, published by Dorling Kindersley, ISBN 0-86318-174-0 has wonderful clear drawings showing household equipment from days of yore. A highly recommended reference book. In there is a picture of sugar cones and the nippers that were in every Victorian kitchen for cutting sugar off of the cone.  There was a hand held version and a larger version mounted on wood.

Barbara B from South Africa

1940s House: The 1940s House has a website: http://www.channel4.com/1940house/

Christine in San Francisco

FACTS ON MEDIEVAL LIFE: 

A couple of people emailed me to learn more about the Middle Ages.  Here is what I wrote to them in case anyone else wants to know! This is accurate to the best of my knowledge--I am not infallible, though! 

Clothing: Too fancy in the Cadfael books and mostly pure fantasy in the movies (very disappointing coming from PBS and Mystery).  Let me find my husband's online info about Medieval clothing.  It will be a slightly earlier period, but clothing for the common people did not change.  Shoes were soft leather with harder, flat leather soles.  Boots with heels are wrong.  My husband says the monks' robes are the wrong period in the films, but I don't know off-hand what is right.  Here is the link to clothing: http://www.markland.org/basicgarb.html 

Armor: Anyone wearing leather armor is wearing fantasy stuff.  Most soldiers had NO armor, padded cloth armor was most common, mail was for rich (noble) men, and plate armor mostly came later. 

Building: Wattle and daub was common--that's mud and sticks--there should be info on the web somewhere.  Also stone is good.  Thatch for roofs.  My pet peeve is flimsy doors full of cracks.  They knew how to make real doors.  Ditto walls.  Mud was free and filled the cracks in walls.  I don't remember if the Cadfael films were good or bad about this.  The city walls should have been stone in the films, not wood. 

Candles: Only rich people used candles. Beeswax was a luxury.  Oil lamps existed (invented before candles, I think).  Animal fat was used in them, or olive oil if you were lucky.  Most people probably had fat-soaked reeds (tapers), but only for emergencies.  EVERYONE went to bed when it got dark (except some clergy).  Torches are mostly fantasy (imagine the fire hazard!) and oil lamps or candle lanterns worked much better, anyway. 

Herbs: The herbs used in Cadfael are fine, but NOT the WAY many are used in the books.  Cadfael had a 20th century knowledge of medicine which is VERY different than the uses to which herbs were put in the Middle Ages.  (minor peeve: how did a common foot soldier manage to tend a garden while fighting in the Holy Land and carry plants and seeds around from place to place at the right seasons for them to survive?) 

Medieval society: Nobles were better than everyone else and there was no intermarrying with commoners. Nor could commoners become Nobles.  Commoners (merchants, craftsmen, some classes of soldiers, and peasants) were considered human, yet still considered a lower life-form than Nobles.  Commoners could not become Clergy, only Nobles could, and then only if their families could pay their way in (that's why the church was so rich and powerful during the Middle Ages).  Cadfael's Common and illegitimate son could never have married a Noblewoman.  Marriages were always arranged, even among the peasants, and affection was a secondary consideration--when it was considered at all, which wasn't often. 

Medieval Names: Surnames were not yet used as such at this time.  They were still merely descriptive additions to given names to distinguish one person from another. For instance, Hugh Berengar would have been Hugh de Berengar or Hugh of Berengar (Berengar would have been a place, obviously).  Most people would not have had any surname at all, and would have been called by nick-names if necessary (like big John, Matthew black, Tom the smith, Molly from  dale). Women did NOT take their husbands' names in any way at this time. This custom did not start until hundreds of years later (16th or 17th century). During the Middle Ages even a  noblewoman with some sort of surname kept it upon marriage.

Jane Walker

Medieval Sinks:  The medieval equivalent to a sink was a wooden bench with tubs on it or a stone slab set on supports of some kind hollowed out into a shallow trough with a drain at one end.  Tubs would stand in this for washing dishes or cloths.  Meat and fish could be cleaned in it and knives sharpened on the front edge.

      Shallow earthenware sinks were mass produced in the Midlands (UK) from the 18th century.  The materials a sink was made of depended on what was available locally - slate and granite lasted best, sandstone was kindest to crockery.  Wooden sinks with beaten lead or copper were popular though expensive and liable to leaks and of course there was porcelain.

Karon

Early Hungarian kitchens:  I observed early Hungarian kitchens in artwork last year, and they only had a "kitchen area"--a wide thick wooden counter with a shelf over it, near the cottage door; there was a wooden bucket of hand-drawn water beside a large metal basin; and two or three pots hung from the shelf, and bowls and mugs sat on the shelf. One room with a firepit area in the corner--similar to southwestern US designs, with plaster walls and a sitting bench incorporated into the fireplace area--thus, "Alice, sit-by-the-fire" (also another US expression, meaning a quiet, tend-your-own-business person). The rest of the room contained a small eating table, two chairs, and a wall rack of rough wood to hang outerwear coats. (The art was of Advent in Hungary.) Pretty rudimentary by our standards, but functional.

Masterson

Medieval URL: With the discussion on medieval  clothing etc. I thought that the following web site might be of interest to some of you: This is an about.com site so there is tons of information

http://womenshistory.about.com/homework/womenshistory/library/etext/bl_cf_ee.htm

Cheryl L.

Victorian era movie;  There is a movie that all those out there in love with the Victorian period should see - "The Age of Innocence" (1993, Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Wynona Ryder). It is set in 1870's New York high society, with all the up-tight manners and morals of the time. The sets are very lavish, the banquets elegant, the clothes exquisite. It is rather long and a bit slow (for those who like movies with car chases), but very rewarding for the atmosphere. It's playing this month on Showtime and MoreMax on cable. Or rent it at the video store.

Marilyn - Wisconsin

Medieval clothing.  I am one of those castle / Cadfael people too.  Here's another web site for clothing

http://www.markland.org/basicgarb.html

Mary Lou Prechtel of Middleburg Hts., OH

Sod House Web Sites:

Soddy http://www.walnutgrove.org/page9.html

Sod House http://websteader.com/wbstdsd1.htm

American Memories http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ndfahtml/hult_sod.html

Huge site about sod buildings. . barns, stores, houses, etc. http://memory.loc.gov/

Judie St. Onge

Historical Research: a wonder sight that you may want to put in your favorites or bookmarks..... http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/finder.html

It is the American Memory Collection from the Library of Congress and is a treasure trove of information including wonderful photos.  For Mary Lynne's pool parlor question I clicked on photos, typed in "pool parlors" and it came up with 500 photos.  This will give you an idea of how extensive the collection is.  Great sight for research for miniatures but beware.....it is addicting!!

Joann Swanson

1940's kitchens:  I found a couple of links with very good graphics of 1940's era kitchens.  Hope they help you.

http://www.retroactive.com/feb99/navbar.html

http://www.oldhouseweb.com/oldhouse/content/pix/1998/dec/kitchens.asp

http://www.oldhousejournal.com/magazine/1998/dec/kitchen/

Eileen

Life in the 1500's. It is quite an eye opener to where some of our sayings came from and where some of our furniture/furnishings originated - or why.

Life in the 1500's: Most people were married in June because they had taken their yearly bath in May and were still smelling pretty good by June. However, they were starting to stink, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the b.o. Baths were big tubs filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

Houses had thatched roofs made of thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to keep warm, so all the pets... dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs." There was nothing to stop things like this from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up the nice clean bed. So, the people found that if they made beds with big posts and hung a sheet over the top, it addressed that problem. Hence those beautiful big 4 poster beds with canopies.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors which would become slippery in the winter when wet. So they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on they kept adding more thresh until, when someone opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed at the entry way, hence a "thresh hold."

People cooked in the kitchen using a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They mostly ate vegetables and didn't get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner leaving leftovers in the pot to become cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been in there for quite some time, hence the rhyme: "peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

Diana in New Zealand

Sears Roebuck Catalog: I found my reproduction edition of the 1902 Sears Roebuck catalogue (and a reproduction of the catalogue for the 1852 Great Exhibition of London). Wow. Is the Sears catalog full of stuff for us. Thousands of very clear illustrations of furniture, fabrics, toys, medicines, machines, clothing, weird stuff for curing unmentionable diseases, trusses, bustles, brushes, barrows, building materials. I think this edition was a big best seller in the 70's so it should be lying around on second hand book shelves.

Moira, Sydney Australia

Does anyone know what kind of roofing was popular in the 1700's?  Let's say mid-1700's, if that makes a difference.

That really depends on the location. In the Pacific Islands, they were using palm leaves to thatch their roofs. VBG

In Old England, sandstone slabs, Slate, thatch and tiles (thatch on the lower cost homes). In New England, slate, thatch, and hand split wooden shingles were being used; wood being the most common. In the midwest US, the teepees were mostly animal skins. France was pretty much slate. Italy was tiles. The Arabs were using silk pavilions 'cause it didn't rain in the desert anyway.

Tom Berkner

1700's shingles: If you are talking about the Colonies, by and large the most popular roofing was wooden shakes. They were plentiful and free - other than labor, which was usually 'home-grown'. When they got wet, they swelled, so they didn't leak. Even getting moss-covered didn't make any difference, because that acted as insulation, as well as a bit of fire proofing. (Not much, admittedly!) Of course, the entire business was bio-degradable; remove the roof, toss it in the pasture, and let nature take its course.

For the more wealthy, and for important buildings, you can use slate or unglazed ceramic tiles. The roof was constructed with horizontal strips, fairly wide spaced. Wooden pegs were inserted through holes in the upper corners of the slates or tiles, and they were 'hung' on the roof. Some tiles were constructed with 'ears' or (rarely) an entire 'folded down' edge, which were then hung over the strips.

Tile roofs were common in the old world, because the great forests had long since been cut down. Thatching was also used there, but not here. As an aside, some places in Europe and the UK are returning to thatch. They put a layer of fire proof material - generally asbestos-based - and then cover with thatch. It is an excellent insulator, and solves the problem of disposing of old shingles because it can be tossed into the compost heap.

Dani Rice

A Note On Roofs: The type of roof used on a building is directly related to the location the home is built in. New Englanders used different material then Virginia, and California homes had another type of roof. Think about the region and style of the house you are building when deciding on material.

Steven

Colonial Williamsburg (1800s): Go to http://www.history.org/ This is the official page for Colonial Williamsburg, (authentic recreation of 18th Century Virginia). On the introduction page there is a collage of photographs--at the bottom left is a picture of a servant in mobcap and apron that will give you a good idea of the clothing of the period. Charleston was geographically and culturally close to Williamsburg and the dress would have been very similar. A kitchen servant at the time could have been either an African slave or an indentured European. The web page also has a line of "Period-Inspired Clothing" for us modern types; you can check the pictures of that to get another idea of how the underclothing was put together.

http://www.williamsburgmarketplace.com/

JJ

Tudor Period: If you are looking for Tudor history here is a very good site to start with. http://www.tudorhistory.org/ You'll find history, architecture, way of life, etc.

MaryLou in Middleburg Hts., OH